I just learned, upon checking the balance of my credit card, that Citibank is now on Facebook. It almost makes me want to rejoin Facebook, so that I can become Citibank’s facebook friend and then leave comments on its page like, “STOP WITH THE F&#%-ING INCREASED FINANCE CHARGES, YOU A%&-HOLE.”
Or maybe I will say, “OMG Citibank you were so crazy at that party last weekend! You are such a slut! LOL”
Maybe it will reward me with a status message:
[Citibank is]: making Molly poor.
I’ve been home sick these last two days. Like, sick-sick. I don’t get sick a lot, and when I’m not sick I almost envy the sick, because they don’t have to go to work and they get to drink juice and watch tv all day. What I forget to keep in mind is that being sick, after the initially kind of enjoyably self-pitying, ‘Oh, I am so sick, woe is me,’ moment of being sick, pretty much sucks.
Brian had whatever this is before I did (thanks, Brian!) but he managed to overcome it without a visit to the doctor. When I asked him how he did it, he said, “Lots of liquids, and lots of rest…and no candy.” He knows me too well.
Speaking of candy, we just missed the Raleigh Donut Run! Where you eat a dozen krispy kreme donuts and then run 6k! Damn it! Why do all the fun, donut-related activities seem to pass me by? I did enjoy that Raleigh’s newspaper, The News & Observer, filed their story about the donut run under “Food & Fitness” when really, it belonged under neither category.
Hilary Duff, you are so right to put Faye Dunaway in her place. How dare she question your acting talents? Lizzie McGuire was a tour de force!
Especially since the original Bonnie and Clyde movie was only a re-telling of the story– while the remake of the ’67 classic you’re starring in, in your own words, “is kind of like the true events of how everything went down.”
I’m sure it’s not your fault Ms. Dunaway allegedly lashed out at you. After all, she’s old! As you pointed out, “I might be mad if I looked like that now, too.” Well said, Hilary. Maybe you’ll get hit by a train and then you’ll always be young and beautiful forever!
I hope this feud does not go on for much longer. Maybe the two of you can put things right by starring in a modern, scene-for-scene remake of Mommie Dearest. Nothing would make me happier.
Dictionary.com, I have had about enough. I’m not not paying you to make me feel dumb.
When I started my new job, I didn’t get very many work-related emails. To get some emails coming in, and yes I know how sad this is, I signed up to receive the Word of the Day email from Dictionary.com.
Of course, as I knew would happen, things picked up at work, and I started getting actual work-related emails. The Dictionary.com emails became superfluous (adj: more than enough; overabundant) and annoying (adj: causing vexation or irritation; troublesome).
Too lazy (adj: averse or disinclined to work; indolent) to actually go back to the website and opt-out of the list, and too meticulous (adj: finicky; fussy; showing extreme care about minute details) to simply delete the emails without reading them, I was reduced to scanning them quickly, nodding sagely to myself, and then filing them away in a folder entitled “Word of Day” in my Outlook email. You know, because I was totally going to read them again later.
One thing I’ve enjoyed about receiving these emails is that the word of the day is usually a word I already know. It isn’t I know that many words; it’s more that Word of the Day tends to aim for the low-hanging fruit. So it gives you pseudo intellectual words like “gesticulate” and “acrid”. Still, knowing them already makes me feel smart. And I love that rush of smartness. It’s like a drug to me. Especially since I started this new job, where it sometimes feels like my learning curve is in the shape of me crouching under my desk.
So the Word of the Day email has held an respected place in my working life-until this morning. On Monday I usually receive three word emails. (I am not sure why Dictionary.com doesn’t take the weekend off. I’m sure it could stand to blow off some steam, dangle its participles, and contemplate the following week’s Word selection. Also, doesn’t it know that no one cares what words mean on the weekend? Apparently not.)
In any event, the first word that greeted me this morning was “Yegg”.
That’s right. Yegg. Apparently it’s a word. Apparently it’s a freaking noun. Its definition SHOULD be “the sound you make when someone grabs the hood on your sweatshirt as you run away”. But instead it means “burglar or safecracker”. Word of the Day, are you trying to mess with me?
And the second word? Oh, you know- “Xanthous”. Xanthous! Which should be a newly approved, doctor-recommended over the counter drug, but according to Dictionary.com it means “yellowish”.
I can’t imagine using that word in casual conversation.
“Please pass me that glass of Mountain Dew,” I’d say, drolly. “Oh, which one? It’s the glass with the xanthous glow. Hurry-don’t make me gesticulate acridly.”
The third word was “Abstinant”, which I could handle, although it’s not my favorite word ever. But come on! Yegg?
I am hoping this is not the beginning of a new trend. Please keep pitching me literary softballs, Word of the Day email! You don’t understand! I NEED this.
I would like to that the latest version of Microsoft Word does NOT recognize the either ‘xanthous’ or ‘yegg’. Dicitonary.com, you best be ready. Paperclip is gunning for you.
Because every damn time I signed on to Facebook, my feed went like this:
[Girl you found distasteful in high school]: Has posted pictures from her wedding!
Click here to view her photos, while wondering if perhaps you misjudged her, back in the day. Find photos distasteful, even for wedding photos. Feel slightly depressed, if also vindicated.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Is home from work!
[Guy you had several ill-advised hookups with three years ago]: Has compared you to his other friends!
Click here if you find this somehow enraging. Click around some more, trying to figure out whom you have been compared with, but give up after a few minutes. Feel somehow violated.
[Girl you know through an ex-boyfriend]: Is a fan of “Bill Withers”.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Is cooking dinner!
[Girl you were good friends with in 7th grade and haven’t talked to since then]: Has sent you a friend request!
Click here to accept her request with enthusiasm.
Click here to send a message to this girl, summarizing what you have been up to for the last fifteen years, and asking what she is up to in return. Wait weeks, but never receive a response. Wonder why you even bothered. Feel slightly irritated every time you notice that she is constantly on Facebook.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Hates morning commutes!
[Ex Boyfriend you are no longer in touch with]: Has left a comment on the photo of [some girl you don’t know].
Click here, despite your better judgment, to read the comment and look at the photo of the girl, so you can see if she is prettier than you. Decide that she looks kind of dull and is probably not as funny as you either. Wonder why you even care? Feel animosity towards Ex Boyfriend for no definable reason.
[Girl you like but haven’t talked to in years]: Has thrown an apple at you!
Click here to pointlessly ‘throw’ a random object back at her in lieu of meaningful communication.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Is listening to a great album!
[Hipster you are vaguely acquainted with and were always a little scornful of]: Has posted pictures from the album “Amazing Wild New Year’s Blowout Party that was Full of Sexy Hipsters Who Are Cooler than You”.
Click here to view the album. Judge all of the people in it because they are mugging at the camera and attempting to look sexy. Also, everyone is drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and wearing trucker hats. Tell yourself you would rather have spent New Year’s Eve at home on your couch, which is good because that’s what happened. Feel slightly bad about yourself for unexplainable reason.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Is a fan of “Pastrami”.
Click here if you are also a fan of “Pastrami”, because the zany, eclectic things we express fondness for help define us to others.
[Random dude you worked with two jobs ago]: Has given you a Martini!
Click here to ‘give’ a ‘drink’ to [Random Dude you worked with two jobs ago], because that constitutes rewarding social interaction or something.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Loves Grey’s Anatomy!
[Girl whom you vaguely recall got married right out of college]: Is now listed as ‘Single’.
Feel overwhelmingly curious and slightly appalled that this information was posted on Facebook and now as a result you are pointlessly aware of it.
[Girl who you shared some classes with in college]: Has tagged herself in a photo!
Click here to view the photo and note that while it is flattering, it also looks very little like how you remember the girl actually looking.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: Is hungry!
[Person you don’t know]: Has left a comment on the status of [Girl whom you vaguely recall got married right out of college and is now apparently single]: “Hey! What happened?”
Feel even more appalled that someone would publicly post a brief, impersonal question like that; do they really expect an answer? Well, maybe. After all, what does [Girl who used to be married] expect, after announcing her singleness on Facebook? Begin feeling ill about the whole scenario.
[Guy you are vaguely acquainted with]: is listed as “In a Relationship” with [Girl you have met twice].
Feel faintly surprised at the match, but mostly indifferent. Wonder how [Guy] and [Girl] decided that their relationship had reached the critical “Change Your Facebook Status” level. Speculate as to whether they discussed whether or not to change their Facebook statuses at the same time, and, if not, wonder which of them did it first, and if the one who did it first worried that the other one would feel that it had been done prematurely. Feel slightly depressed by this train of thought.
[Guy you were close to in college but haven’t seen in five years]: Has sent you an invitation!
Click here for details on this invitation to “An Awesome Show I’m in that is Happening in a City You Haven’t Lived in Since 1999.”
Feel flattered by the invitation, but also confused. You’re probably not going to hop on a plane to see the show of a friend you haven’t spoken with since college. But you still feel too guilty to respond to the invitation with a “No”, so you absurdly put “Maybe”.
[Person you barely talk to who lives in a different city]: is beginning to depress you with their constant updates.
Click here to scan through your Facebook friends and realize that very few of them represent actual, current friendships or even associations that you remotely value. In fact your list of contacts feels like an eerie social graveyard of expired friendships, badly ended relationships, and vague, past acquaintances you care very little about. Begin to feel depressed by the fact that so many people have passed in and out of your life without leaving much of an impression on you. Wonder how a website that is so meaningless, vacuous and shallow has become so overwhelmingly popular (particularly with younger generations), and what that means about how we view social interaction today and the direction in which it is going.
Pour yourself a real, actual drink. Note that you have a closer relationship with Jim Beam than with most of your so-called Facebook friends.
Leave Facebook.
Why is it that whenever you go to the drug store to buy certain items, the last person you’d want ringing you up for them is always the only one behind the counter?
Granted, I don’t have a lot of shame; if I need to buy something I’ll damn well buy it, no matter what kind of smocked employee gives me the side-eye. Still, I can’t help but notice this unfailing trend. Buying condoms in college, it was always the disapproving grandma type ringing me up. Unfailingly when I buy tampons, it’s from an awkward teenage boy.
This evening was a particularly bad example of this phenomenon. I needed to buy a certain item that I don’t feel like discussing. Of course, the requisite teenager was behind the counter. All right, fine.
“How are you ma’am?”
“I’m good.”
When I’m buying certain items, I always have the impulse to answer truthfully. “How am I? Ahem. I clearly could be better.” Anyway, the transaction went fairly smoothly, and I escaped out the front door with a sigh of relief– until the theft detectors went off.
I gave that sheepish “you don’t really think I’m stealing anything, right? Can I just keep on going here?” shrug-and-smile combo, but to no avail. For the first time in recorded history, I was called back to the counter– and this time the disapproving grandma clerks (two of them!) got in on the action. They rifled through my bag and pulled out the last box I wanted them to pull out.
“Is it this? I think it’s this,” they chorused, and handed it back to the teenage boy. “Rub it on the desensitizing mat,” they ordered him, then added, “No, harder– you really have to rub it on there.”
I stood there. “Of course it’s that,” I said, and was ignored. My face burned.
Finally they put it back in the bag and passed it to me. “You’re free to go,” they said.
I got the hell out of there before I could start giggling hysterically. Next time I’m going to CVS.
Spring 1998: Molly is participating in a student-exchange program, and she is spending three weeks in Narita, Japan with a host family. On her first night in Japan, she finds herself in the bathroom trying to figure out how to flush the toilet. It is an intimidating-looking instrument, with a control panel filled with buttons and flashing lights; all of the labels are in Japanese. Uncertainly, Molly presses a couple of buttons on the control panel and hopes for the best. Suddenly, a tiny white rod appears, extending from the underside of the rim on the back of the toilet bowl. Molly leans in to investigate this device. A jet of water shoots out of a spigot in the rod and hits her point-blank in the face. Spluttering, she cups her hand over the stream and frantically presses more buttons until it stops and the tube retracts.
After drying her face, Molly happens to notice that on the side of the toilet is a normal metal handle for manual flushing.
Winter, 2008: Molly is scraping the ice off of her car windshield on a chilly morning in North Carolina. Realizing that a spray of windshield-wiper fluid might make the job a little easier, she opens the driver’s side door of the car and, still standing beside the car, pushes the lever behind the steering wheel which releases a jet of said fluid, which hits her point blank in the face. Fortunately, Molly is wearing glasses at the time, the lenses of which are now extremely water-resistant.
I can’t wait to see what I manage to spray myself in the face with in 2018. What scares me is that the liquids in question appear to be growing increasingly more toxic with each event. This does not look promising. I should probably invest in Face Insurance. After all, my looks are all I have!
Today while I was at work a bird pooped directly on the driver’s-side door handle of my car.
I mean, what are the odds?? And now how am I supposed to get home?
I Heard Tell 